Newsmakers: Occidental's Union Station buy was deal of the year

Occidental Management Inc.’s purchase early last year of Union Station and its plans to redevelop the iconic terminal and other buildings there added more steam to a downtown redevelopment train that seems to be gaining speed.

For Gary Oborny, Occidental chairman and CEO, and Chad Stafford, Occidental president, the purchase from Cox Communications culminated years of interest in the nearly 10-acre property. Initial plans include offices for the main terminal, restaurants for the former Rock Island Depot building to its east, and offices and retail for the former Grand Hotel east of that. They also are considering building apartments and think the site could be good for a grocer.

Because of the station’s history and iconic nature, many people are following what happens there with interest.

How long had you been considering buying Union Station?

GO: We’ve been tracking it since it went up for sale.... Five or six years ago. ... We always had kind of gone through and had discussions with them on again, off again, as other interested parties came to the table. ... Price was a detriment. ... The other was obviously dealing with a large corporation ... I mean Cox was great to work with, but again, you are dealing with a very large corporation.

CS: Different layers and levels that have to give approvals and input on stuff and a lot of times that can complicate it.

GO: And I think that that was the case here. And so it being an historical property obviously complicated it a little bit. It being in the master development plan for the downtown city of Wichita obviously probably complicated it a little bit. There were just a lot of moving parts. ... We’re pretty good at dealing with projects that have a lot of moving parts to them and have to be put together in order to make it work — and I think that’s where we excel.

Is this the biggest project you guys have ever done?

GO: I think it’s on par with several projects that we’ve done before. This here (the former Northrock 6 Theater that Occidental converted to offices near 32nd and Rock) is obviously close to 100,000 square feet, that’s about 110,000 square feet over there (at Union Station), although it could be expanded into a larger footprint.

But probably the most symbolic and visible, don’t you think?

Oborny: In the Wichita community, you bet.

Your threshold for challenges is high because you’re used to it?

GO: As long as it’s balanced by opportunity. So if it’s a large amount of challenges that aren’t going to result in opportunity, I’d say no way, we’re not a good candidate that way, but when we see challenges as opportunity and the opportunity is real, then yes.

Neil Bhakta has announced a restaurant and Smoothie King for the Rock Island Depot. Are there any other announcements pending for the campus?

GO: Not at this point, but we do have some really great interest. Those interest levels will obviously depend upon the historical (guidelines for the building and how those mesh with tenant needs and uses) and whether we do a TIF (tax increment financing) situation or not down there. So that still is very much open to ... how we’re developing the property.

Are you still leaning toward building housing on the site, too?

GO: It’s a possibility. Right now our focus is the Grand Hotel ... our focus right now is to get that going and the depot going. ... We’re going to focus on those two buildings to get those up and going in 2014.

Do you have some tenants lined up for the old hotel building?

GO: Yes. We have parties we’re working with we’re trying to get to final agreement.

CS: We’re still under confidentiality agreement because we haven’t signed the leases, but they’re in the final stages.

Anything else we can expect to see this year?

GO: We still continue to work through design and working with potential users for the large terminal building. ... We’ll start to solidify probably planning and ... moving towards a design and a construction period... I would say that we will probably start that project first part of 2015.

Apartments are still a possibility as well as maybe ... a grocery store?

CS: Really need to ascertain what the demand’s going to be from the multifamily piece. ... And obviously we would love to have a grocery store downtown, I think that would only enhance any multifamily offering that we might go for.